What is Crisis Management in Public Relations?

Every organization is vulnerable to threats and prone to crisis. Any PR practitioner who is responsible for handling a crisis, needs to first understand what are the potential threats and crisis situation the organization may encounter. Only then, setting up infrastructure in accordance to it can be carried out. There are many businesses that often ask – what is crisis communication in public relations – when they opt for public relations services. The truth is, a major chunk of the work PR professional do involves crisis management.

In fact, the challenge thrown by crisis management in public relations (PR) is loved by all when a way to successfully manage the process is discovered.

Obviously, no company ever wants to face crisis, but managing it isn’t as bad as it sounds. In the past few years, PR consultants have come up with multi-faceted processes that helps in crisis management efficiently.

Crisis management in PR: know the tricks

The basic steps of crisis communications are not tough to master, but they need advance work that helps lower the damage. If you take lot of time to respond, the company will incur sever damage. So, if you are keen about crisis preparedness, take a cue from these lessons on crisis management in public relations.

Know and engage with the important conversations drivers – Social media platform like Twitter is an excellent conversation tool and can’t be treated as a one-way medium. During times of crisis, it is important to think about the influencers and find ways to engage with them.

Keeping a close watch on your own reputation along with maintaining a focus on the activities of the protagonists.

Creating an efficient and platform-focused messaging – It is crucial to know where the crisis is happening. For instance, if the crisis is taking place on YouTube, make your response through a video and post it on Youtube.

Become the owner of your brand – It’s time to register your brand on platforms like Pinterest.

Utilizing the power of Twitter – Over 50% of the media professional and journalists make use of Twitter for sources. It won’t be incorrect to say that Twitter has managed to become an essential part of media relations management these days.

Connecting with people through people – Find out who will be in-charge of communicating for your brand during times of crisis. You also need to think who will be able to humanize your brand using Twitter.

Relevance of integration – Yes, videos are incredibly strong but it is important that they are shared through multiple platforms so that audiences are able to connect with it. They should be informed that your organization has created a video that will help them in multiple ways.

Speak the ‘right’ thing during times of crisis – Many companies fail to understand that saying the wrong things can actually harm the complete image of a business. We understand that moving swiftly during times of crisis is crucial, do check your facts before you speak to the audiences.

Using your employees as your allies – The employees can play the role of your allies when you engage with them right on time.

As part of the varied services offered by the industry, the demand for crisis management has gone up dramatically. Most business houses across the globe are able to understand the importance of crisis preparedness. But despite its relevance, most companies continue to be unprepared or under-prepared for crisis communication.